TY - JOUR
T1 - Social Media as a Medium to Promote Local Perception Expression in China’s World Heritage Sites
AU - Liang, Xiaoxu
AU - Hua, Naisi
AU - Martin, John
AU - Dellapiana, Elena
AU - Coscia, Cristina
AU - Zhang, Yu
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2022/6
Y1 - 2022/6
N2 - The assessment of public participation is one of the most fundamental components of holistic and sustainable cultural heritage management. Since the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic became a catalyst for the transformation of participatory tools. Collaboration with stakeholders moved online due to the strict restrictions preventing on-site activities. This phenomenon provided an opportunity to formulate more comprehensive and reasonable urban heritage protection strategies. However, very few publications mentioned how social networking sites’ data could support humanity-centred heritage management and participatory evaluation. Taking five World Cultural Heritage Sites as research samples, the study provides a methodology to evaluate online participatory practices in China through Weibo, a Chinese-originated social media platform. The data obtained were analysed from three perspectives: the users’ information, the content of texts, and the attached images. As shown in the results section, individuals’ information is described by gender, geo-location, celebrities, and Key Opinion Leaders. To a greater extent, participatory behaviour emerges at the relatively primary levels, that being “informing and consulting”. According to the label detection of Google Vision, residents paid more attention to buildings, facades, and temples in the cultural heritage sites. The research concludes that using social media platforms to unveil interplays between digital and physical heritage conservation is feasible and should be widely encouraged.
AB - The assessment of public participation is one of the most fundamental components of holistic and sustainable cultural heritage management. Since the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic became a catalyst for the transformation of participatory tools. Collaboration with stakeholders moved online due to the strict restrictions preventing on-site activities. This phenomenon provided an opportunity to formulate more comprehensive and reasonable urban heritage protection strategies. However, very few publications mentioned how social networking sites’ data could support humanity-centred heritage management and participatory evaluation. Taking five World Cultural Heritage Sites as research samples, the study provides a methodology to evaluate online participatory practices in China through Weibo, a Chinese-originated social media platform. The data obtained were analysed from three perspectives: the users’ information, the content of texts, and the attached images. As shown in the results section, individuals’ information is described by gender, geo-location, celebrities, and Key Opinion Leaders. To a greater extent, participatory behaviour emerges at the relatively primary levels, that being “informing and consulting”. According to the label detection of Google Vision, residents paid more attention to buildings, facades, and temples in the cultural heritage sites. The research concludes that using social media platforms to unveil interplays between digital and physical heritage conservation is feasible and should be widely encouraged.
KW - cultural heritage management
KW - inclusive governance
KW - pandemic
KW - public participation
KW - social media
KW - Weibo
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85131859635&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/land11060841
DO - 10.3390/land11060841
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85131859635
SN - 2073-445X
VL - 11
JO - Land
JF - Land
IS - 6
M1 - 841
ER -